People often thank God when they accept awards. Rarely do they thank Satan. Until last night, of course, when Christian Bale name-checked the diabolical one when he gathered in his Golden Globe for playing Dick Cheney in Vice. “Thank you to Satan for giving me inspiration on how to play this role,” Bale said after winning the statuette for best actor in a motion picture comedy/musical. Naturally, the Church of Satan was thrilled with the namecheck. Congresswoman Liz Cheney, Dick... Read more
Avengers: Infinity War gave us the greatest roster of superheroes ever assembled on screen. About 20 of ’em face off against Thanos and his Infinity Gauntlet, determined to thwart his evil plot. And they’re not just playing the numbers game, either: Rarely have we seen our heroes so heroic, so self-sacrificial. Rarely have movie audiences been witness to such muscled derring-do. But (and for those who haven’t seen in Infinity War, now’s the time to look away) it didn’t work.... Read more
Reviewing movies is hard, people. You have to watch a lot of movies, and then you have to—get this—write about them. So. Much. Work. And then, if they’re especially good, you have to figure if they belong on year-end lists and where to put them. My list isn’t necessarily definitive. I haven’t seen every movie this year, and part of me wishes I could leave a space or two blank for films I might be watching in the coming days.... Read more
Roma begins in water. It’s all we see at first—the water washing over black-and-white tile like a tide. Most movies, if they contained a scene like this at all, would hold the shot for just a second or two. But director Alfonso Cuarón lingers here for minutes, and in so doing the moment unfolds like a flower. We see not just the water, but the tile underneath, the soap bubbles clinging to the surface, the reflection of a faraway plane,... Read more
Deadpool fans were treated to a new poster last week, right in advance of the PG-13 cut of Deadpool 2, called Once Upon a Deadpool. It features a heavenly array of angels and puppies and bubbles and Fred Savage, plus Deadpool himself dressed in robes, looking a little like Jesus. The tagline: “Yule Believe in Miracles.” Maybe the movie’s biggest miracle is that we have a full-length movie at all: I would’ve thought that, after its makers cut out all... Read more
“Now is not the end,” Winston Churchill said in Nov. 1942. “It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Is Avengers End Game won’t be the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, of course. But it does mark an end of something, and likely the end of a few of our favorite superheroes to make way for others. And the beginning of the end–or the end of the beginning–officially started... Read more
George H.W. Bush first spoke of “a thousand points of light” in New Orleans, as he was accepting the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention. He first used it as a reference to America’s volunteer organizations, then wrapped up his speech by saying that he would “keep America moving forward, always forward—for a better America, for an endless enduring dream and a thousand points of light.” Bush was never known as an electric speaker like Mario Cuomo or... Read more
I review movies for a living, and I’ve seen plenty of horror flicks this year. From A Quiet Place to The Nun to the newest Halloween, I’ve been subjected to my share of jump scares and creeping chills. But National Geographic’s Free Solo is the most terrifying movie of the year. No homicidal maniac haunts this film, no hungry alien lurks in its corners. The terror is right in front of you—El Capitan, a 3,200 feet of granite cliff shooting... Read more
The third season of Netflix’s Daredevil begins with a black baptism. Its first few seconds give us a broiling mass of fire and water, the aftermath of last year’s Defenders finale. In that finale Matt Murdock, a.k.a. Daredevil, helped once again to save New York (with a little help from his friends), but everyone thought he died in the process. He and villain/hero/girlfriend Electra were buried underneath a mountain of rubble, and surely both were dead and gone. Not so... Read more
No one likes it when carolers attack. That’s especially true if you’re the Grinch, who hated Christmas. Still, when you live near the Christmas-crazy town of Whoville, it’s hard to get away from it completely. And in the new Universal movie named after him (based, of course, on the Dr. Seuss book and the timeless television special), Mr. Grinch braves the Christmas-besotted enclave to pick up some provisions for his mountaintop retreat. Our green anti-protagonist is immediately assaulted by Christmas... Read more
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